Education

Ph.D. Illinois State University, 2020
M.Phil. University of Cambridge, 2013

Specialization

• Children’s literature
• Young Adult Literature
• Feminist and Queer Theory
• Material Feminisms
• Feminist Pedagogy
• Critical Race Theory

Recent Courses Taught

Speculative Fiction for Young Readers
Visual Narratives in Children’s and Young Adult Literatures
Young Adult Literature: Reimagining the Canon
Critical Theories in Children’s and Young Adult Literature

Selected Publications

BOOKS

• • The Discursive Material: Constructions of Femininity in Young Adult Speculative Fiction, University Press of Mississippi, 2026. (Forthcoming)

RECENT ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS

• • [with Nithya Sivashankar] “I’d Really, Really Like a Boyfriend”: Exploring Adolescence, Ideology, and Marketing in South Asian YA Television Romances,” submitted to the special issue “YA + Series + Romance” in Journal of Popular Romance Studies, vol. 14, 17 Dec 2025. https://doi.org/10.70138/YRRP4607
  • ““We’re a dream when we work as a team”: Challenging Neoliberal Story Structures through the Ethics of Care in Disney’s Encanto and Coco,” The Lion and the Unicorn, vol. 49, no. 1, 2025 (Forthcoming.)
  • “Engaged Pedagogy as Empowerment: Teaching Embodiment of Gender and Sexuality in the Young Adult Literature Classroom.” Teaching Equity Through Children’s Literature edited by Gayatri Devi, Philip Smith, and Stephanie J. Weaver.  Routledge, 2024, pp. 47-59.
  • “Reimagining Hindu Mythology for the Diasporic Queer Body: Discursive Materiality in Vivek Shraya’s She of the Mountains.” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, July 2023, vol. 46, no. 5., pp. 1066-1083.
  • (With Nithya Sivashankar) “Beyond Bollywood: Analyzing Problematic Stereotypes in Indian-American Young Adult Novels.” The ALAN Review, Winter 2021, vol. 48, no. 2, pp. 51-63.
  • “Girl-Animal Metamorphoses: Voice, Choice, and (Material) Agency of the Transforming Female Body in Young Adult Literature.” Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures, vol. 11, no. 1, 2019, pp. 112-38.
  • “Issues of Control and Agency in Staged Metafictive Picturebooks.” Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, vol. 43, no. 1, 2018, pp. 67-83.
  • “‘Sorry, I Don’t Speak Bear’: Voice, Agency, and the Mother-Daughter Relationship in Disney-Pixar’s Brave.” PAPERS: Explorations into Children’s Literature, vol. 25, no. 1, 2017, pp. 1-22.